Iranian Alert -- June 20, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

Israeli Agents Working In Iraq's Kurdistan, Iran

June 20, 2004
AFX News
Ample

WASHINGTON -- Israeli intelligence and military agents are working secretly in Iraq's Kurdistan region, and have slipped into Iran to monitor nuclear facilities, the New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.

Members of Israel's Mossad secret service are among the agents working in Iraq, where some pose as businessmen, but in reality are training Kurdish commandos in the northern part of the country, the report said.

Israel's embassy in Washington denied the claim, but the magazine said a senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency confirmed that Israelis are working in Iraq.

Israel's government decided six months ago that the US would not succeed in bringing stability and democracy to Iraq, and believes it needs agents in the country, The New Yorker said.

In working with Kurds, Israel has its eyes and ears on Iran, Iraq and Syria, the magazine said. After a June 30 handover to an interim Iraqi government, Israel wants to have Kurdish commandos trained as a counterbalance to Shiite militias, it said.

Israeli agents and Kurdish commandos have already crossed Iraq's border into Iran, where they have set up sensors and other devices to monitor Iranian nuclear facilities.

A former CIA officer also told the magazine that Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi had worked as an agent for Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in the 1960s and 1970s, and has links to the killings of Iraqi dissidents across Europe.

http://www.iii.co.uk/shares/?type=news&articleid=5003927&action=article

Iran pulls out of EU uranium deal, says it will enrich again

DPA , TEHRAN
Sunday, Jun 20, 2004,Page 6

Iran proclaimed yesterday that it was no longer committed to the agreements made last October with the EU trio of Britain, France and Germany and would resume uranium enrichment.

"We made an agreement with the European Union trio last October in Tehran, which also included a temporary halt to uranium enrichment, but as the Europeans were not committed to the Tehran Declaration, therefore we also lift the temporary halt to uranium enrichment," Hassan Rowhani, Iran's chief negotiator on nuclear issues, told reporters.

Rowhani gave a press conference yesterday morning after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a resolution on Friday criticizing Iran for failing fully to disclose the extent of its nuclear program.

"Details on Iran's new uranium enrichment program will be announced in the coming days," said Rowhani, who is also secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

"We do not pay much attention to the new resolution as the whole issue has once again been politicized with the final aim to deprive Iran of peaceful nuclear technology," he said.

He blamed the IAEA for poisoning the atmosphere in Vienna against Iran with false information, referring to IAEA charges that Iran had not informed the IAEA about its importation of 150 magnets for gas centrifuges used in uranium enrichment.

The IAEA later admitted that its initial claim about the importation of magnets was not correct and Iran in return demanded a change to the critical resolution.

"We however continue cooperation with the IAEA but stress settling the dispute over Iran's nuclear program at the earliest term and without politicization," said Rowhani, who is also a potential candidate to succeed Iranian President Mohammad Khatami next year.

Rowhani also said Iran would not withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran had even agreed on further IAEA inspections in Arak and Isfahan in central Iran, where a heavy water reactor is planned and where nuclear pollution had been reported by the inspectors, he said.

"The new resolution has not created any new commitment for Iran and there will also be no halt to the heavy water reactor plan in Isfahan," he said, referring to an earlier demand by the EU trio.

The cleric reiterated that, contrary to US claims, Iran had no secret plans for nuclear weapons, adding "the IAEA acknowledgement of this fact has left only a few pages left from the rather very thick Iranian nuclear file at the beginning."

The IAEA unanimously passed a resolution on Friday criticizing Iran for failing to fully disclose the extent of its nuclear program.

International investigators from the Vienna-based UN watchdog had been given contradictory and incomplete information, the agency said.

The strongly worded resolution is a stinging rebuke to Tehran but stops short of threatening Iran with UN Security Council sanctions.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/20/2003175823

Profile: Iyad Allawi -- a Shiite chosen as new Iraqi PM
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2004-06-02 11:37

Xinhuanet
http://en.ce.cn/World/Middleeast/t20040602_981421.shtml

Iyad Allaw , the newly appointed Prime Minister of a new interim administration of Iraq makes speech at a Baghdad ceremony of forming the new interim government, in this Iraqi capital, June 1, 2004. It had been announced that Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Rowsch Shaways were named vice presidents and Iyad Allawi newly appointed Prime Minister. Allawi vowed Tuesday to work to regain full sovereignty on June 30 and in the period after that. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

Iraq's newly appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed Tuesday to work to regain full sovereignty on June 30 and in the period after that.

At a Baghdad ceremony of forming the new interim government, Allawi pointed out that a government "enjoying full sovereignty" is a step toward a state of law and order, reform and democratic life.

To many Iraqis, choosing Allawi as prime minister of the interim Iraqi government which will take over power from the US-led coalition forces on June 30 did not come as a surprise.

Being one of the most prominent Iraqi political refugees abroad who cooperated with the Americans, Allawi was chosen as a member of the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) after the US occupation of Iraq and then into the 9-member presidential body in the council.

As head of the National Accord Movement, a powerful presence inthe political arena in Iraq, Allawi was able to include many Baathists into his movement in the past year.

According to alphabetic order, he was the third monthly rotating president of the IGC in October 2003.

Born in 1945 to a Shiite family, Allawi is a surgeon and the grandson of a physician who was the health minister in Iraq's monarchy era.

Allawi was a Baath Party member for 10 years (1961 - 1971) before he left for Beirut and London.

In 1991, he founded the Iraqi National Accord movement, which became one of the opposition political organizations against Saddam Hussein's regime and his Baath Party.

During the time that preceded the toppling of Saddam's regime, the movement took Amman, capital of Jordan, as a center for its political and media activities. It moved to Baghdad after the US-led coalition forces ousted Saddam in April last year.

According to observers, one of the reasons for Allawi's nomination is that he is a Shiite.

The United States and United Nations wanted a Sunni figure for the position of Iraqi president and a Shiite for the position of prime minister, as part of the balance between the religious and national sects of the Iraq society, they said.

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